Today I’m taking a look at a building which stood in Hyde Park, on the north side of the Serpentine next to the Ring (a circular track around which the nobility could drive in their carriages). It was known as the Cheesecake House (among other names) and was a place to stop for refreshments.
The Cheesecake House in Hyde Park by Paul Sandby, 1797. Royal Collection Trust
An ancient building, made of timber and plaster with a flat tiled roof, the Cheesecake House stood in the park from at least the reign of Charles II (and perhaps even earlier). To gain access to the front door, you crossed the small stream which ran in front of the building via a rudimentary wooden bridge. Samuel Pepys was a visitor; in 1669 he took his wife. They sat outside in their coach and ate ‘a cheesecake and drank a tankard of milk.’
In the time of Queen Anne, it was known as the Cake House or Minced-pie House and later was called Price’s Lodge (some sources say after Gervase Price, chief under-keeper of Hyde Park). By the late seventeenth-century Price’s Lodge was run by a widow named Frances Price.
St James’s Park is frequented by people of quality; who, if they have a mind to have better and freer air, drive to Hyde Park, where is a ring for the coaches to drive around; and hard by is Mrs Price’s where are incomparable syllabubs. A Journey to London in the year 1698 by Dr William King (1663-1712)
Its best known name was given because cheesecakes, custards, tarts and syllabubs were all on the menu.
Mrs Price was still the landlady in 1712 when a famous duel was fought literally on her doorstep in Hyde Park between James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton and Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun on 12 November.
Lord Mohun’s coach was stopped by the keeper of Hyde Park but, telling him they were headed for Price’s Lodge, he allowed it to pass. Mohun and his second, an Irish officer named George Macartney, got out of the coach and walked away, bidding the coachman to go into the lodge and ask John Reynolds, the Drawer, to get ‘burnt-wine’ ready for their return. Reynolds was wise to their tricks. He said he would not do so, ‘for very few came thither so soon in the morning but to fight… .’
The duel was fought with swords and the seconds joined in too. Mohun was fatally wounded but the Duke of Hamilton only received a cut on his arm, at least at that point. Accounts differ, but it was claimed that the duke dropped his sword and Macartney, Mohun’s second, delivered a fatal blow to him. John Reynolds came out and tried to help the duke walk to the house but before they reached the bridge, Hamilton said ‘he could walk no further’ and died on the spot.
With both the main protagonists dead, the two seconds, Macartney and the duke’s man, Colonel Hamilton were charged with manslaughter. Macartney fled to Hanover but Hamilton stood trial and was found guilty.
The Cheesecake House, Hyde Park. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
Frances Price died around 1719 and her will, written seven years earlier, left the house to her grandson, John Price. (The will left provision for Frances’ widowed daughter, Anne Silver, to take over the management if she wished to do so. In that event, she would pay John £10 a year for its use. Sadly, Anne Silver predeceased her mother.)
By 1801 the Cheesecake House was in use as a boat house and in the nineteenth century was demolished altogether. For around a century, no refreshments were allowed to be sold in Hyde Park unless a fair was being held. It was a situation that caused many complaints. Finally, on 1 April 1909, the Ring Tea House opened, a newly built Georgian rustic-style circular building which catered for the park’s visitors.
You might be interested to know that cheesecakes of the period contained no cheese and were akin to a Yorkshire curd tart. In my next blog post, I’ll take a look at some Georgian-era recipes for cheesecakes, custards, tarts, and syllabubs.
Sources:
Edward Walford, ‘Hyde Park’, in Old and New London: Volume 4 (London, 1878), pp. 375-405. British History Online
The Gentleman’s Magazine, May 1801
London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions by Henry Benjamin Wheatley and Peter Cunningham, Cambridge University Press, 2011
Daily Telegraph and Courier (London), 9th April 1909
The Original Works in verse and prose of Dr William King, vol 1, 1776
The substance of all the depositions taken at the coroners’ inquest the 17th, 19th, and 21st of November, on the body of Duke Hamilton. And the 15th, 18th, 20th, and 22nd, on the body of my Lord Mohun, 1712
National Archives:
PROB 11/573/157, Will of Frances Price, widow of Hyde Park, 19 March 1719/1720
PROB 11/542/334, Will of Anne Silver, widow of Hyde Park, 25 October 1714
This is an updated revision of my earlier blog post on a former website.
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